Aquarius Ancillary Sea Surface Temperature: 7-Day Ascending Grid

Aquarius Level 3 ancillary sea surface temperature data are derived from Reynolds NCDC daily SSTs and processed to match the Aquarius mission's spatiotemporal grid. This dataset provides the 7-day, ascending-pass ancillary SST product used for calibrating the Aquarius satellite's ocean salinity retrievals. It represents the official end-of-mission public data release (Version 5.0) from the AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite-derived ocean salinity measurements based on ancillary sea surface temperature data.
• Analyzing weekly sea surface temperature patterns from ascending satellite passes.
• Validating other SST products against a processed, gridded standard mapped image dataset.
• Studying the relationship between sea surface temperature and ocean salinity at a 1-degree resolution.

Strengths

• Represents the official end-of-mission public data release (Version 5.0) from a NASA satellite mission.
• Data is processed to a standardized 1-degree spatial grid across multiple time intervals (daily, 7-day, monthly, annual).
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata), indicating recognized importance.

Limitations

• Column names and specific data structure are not provided in any source description.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2015 on NASA Earthdata vs. 2026 on Data.gov), creating uncertainty about metadata maintenance.
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further details.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), AQUARIUS/SAC-D mission.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing; daily SSTs from the Reynolds NCDC 0.25-degree dataset gridded and averaged using Aquarius L2-L3 processing.

Freshness

2026-03-13 (from Data.gov, though this may be a metadata update; NASA source lists 2015).

Geography

Global ocean coverage.